Ranger's Wild Woman (11 page)

“I’m dying, Ranger,” she said with a groan. “I’ve never had so much fun in my life. It was like riding all the fast rides at the amusement park all at once, over and over again.”

He stretched, revealing a big chest and strong muscles she hadn’t had time to appreciate fully last night. Men weren’t supposed to be so gorgeous. Nor so talented with their—

She’d pulled his shirt through the back window from where he’d tossed it, and a small rope circle fell to the truckbed. Picking it up, she held the ring up so that Ranger could see it. “What’s this?”

He took the shirt and put it on, ignoring what she held up and the tone of her voice. “Your ring.”

“I know that. I threw it away in the cave.”

“And I picked it up.” Jumping down from the truck, he went to shrug into the rest of his clothes. Was there anything more exciting than the sight of a man’s bare butt hanging out below his shirt—

She forced herself to focus on her fear and not her attraction. “But why?”

He didn’t look at her as he dressed. “Why not?”

Why not, indeed. This was supposed to be casual. It was supposed to mean nothing. He wasn’t supposed to want anything serious between them.

Then why did he have her wedding ring?

“Ranger,” she said, taking her clothes as he handed them over the side, “where is your ring?”

“In my wallet. Yours must have fallen out when I tore my clothes off. In fact, if we find all of your clothes, it will be a shock to me.”

And then he looked at her with those big dark eyes, patient and kind and unmoving.

“You promised,” she said softly. “You promised this was casual.”

“I can be as casual as you want me to be.” He leaned over the side to give her a soft kiss on the lips. “I’m going to go use the gents.”

And he left her sitting there, naked in his truck.

She had the strangest feeling he had no intention of being casual at all. Suddenly, she was scared. If he loved her, if he was in love with her, she wouldn’t know what to do.

She was afraid she might fall in love with him, too. She was nothing like the kind of woman he should love. Her way was to keep moving before anyone could realize she wasn’t good enough. But a handsome man with a fairly stable lifestyle and enough badness in him to make cowboy sex the most fun she’d ever had—it was almost too irresistible.

He’d kept the wedding ring she’d flung in the dirt.

Oh, God. She needed to keep moving.
Now.

“The ladies’ is over by yonder tree,” Ranger said cheerfully when he returned. “Hurry up. We’ve got to get a move on if we’re going to catch that riverboat.” And then he started singing.

The ass! He was actually serenading her with an old Mac Davis tune, one from, yes, her generation. It was the one about the girl getting that clinging-vine look in her eyes and the man warning her not to get hooked on him!

She jumped down from the truckbed without folding the blanket and ignored him, marching off to find the “ladies”’ he’d offered. When she returned, he grinned at her.

“Feel better?” he asked.

She wanted to smack him. “It is so obvious what you’re doing.”

“Getting you to your riverboat, darlin’,” he said too happily, gunning the truck engine. “Why, would you look at that? A full tank of gas!”

“What?” she exclaimed.

“Now, Miss HotKiss,” he said, shaking a finger at her, his grin smug. “You didn’t think a cowboy would travel in a truck this size without extra fuel, did you? Didn’t you see that gas can back there? I believe you kicked it once or twice.” He put his hat on and pulled out a good-size map from the console, which he made a great show of shaking out. “Now, I put us about here. Which means we’re only five minutes from a main road. So we’re off and running, huh, gal?”

He’d tricked her, the louse. Gritting her teeth, she said, “And the flat? Should I ask if meadow fairies fixed the flat in the night?”

“They did!” he exclaimed with wide eyes. “How did you guess? And you know what else,” he said conspiratorially, “they even told me that the north star was a pretty reliable indicator of direction.”

“You ass!” She crossed her arms and stared out the window.

“Some crazy little girl once upon a time told me the word was best used with a French pronunciation,” he said, driving the truck up onto the highway smoothly, his grin even more smooth. “Ah-shay, I believe she told me. ’Course, by the time I finished with her, she was saying, Ah-Ranger!”

“Thanks for sharing that,” Hannah said. “Very funny, I might add.”

“Casual, sweetie,” he said cheerfully. “I’m just a casual kind of guy, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

W
HEW
! Hannah was pouting, which was good. Ranger’s heart slowed down. She’d begun freaking out on him when she found her ring, and with her eyes all panicked and wild, she’d reminded him of a filly he’d once been stuck breaking in. That filly had just about worn him out with her crazy ways. Instantly, he’d realized Hannah was on her way out the gate.

But now she was calm—annoyed, but calm—and that was better. He’d need a few moments to gather his wits and prepare the rest of his battle plan. She was a wily one, never-tameable, and he’d have to be very careful about proceeding, sort of like stepping around grenades.

Obviously, she couldn’t handle the thought of security or commitment. That was fine, wasn’t it?

He tried to picture Hannah cooking on a stove, wearing an apron every day of her life, and the vision was enough to make him laugh. It was much easier to envision her naked.

He liked that image much better. Okay, so lots of sex could be in their future, just so long as she thought he didn’t want her permanently.

Damn, that might suck after a while. Something inside him was stable, a part of him that overlaid his rowdy spirit. Did he want to settle down eventually? Not with the white picket fence, blue shutters and yard full of kids, but…settle with the right woman and wake up every day with a hard-on for her.

Beside him, Hannah was dozing. The sunlight
showed the softness of age in her face. He found that more attractive than any pretty young thing he might have had in his truck. So much about Hannah felt like what he’d been waiting for his whole life.

He could be patient, he told himself. He’d out-waited many a wild thing in his time.

He would take her to Jellyfish and his riverboat, and when she saw the two of them side-by-side, she would realize the difference between a squid and a cowboy. He would bet Little Miss Don’t-Tie-Me-Down would jump into the river to swim after him as he waved goodbye!

A
COUPLE OF SILENT HOURS
later, they’d reached their destination. The riverboat shone white and serene in the murky water of the Mississippi.

“He’s still here!” Hannah exclaimed, sitting up.

“Sure he is. I paid your almost-ex two hundred dollars per customer to hang around until we got here.”

Hannah turned to stare at him. “What are you talking about?”

Ranger shrugged, pleased that he’d surprised her. “Last night, when you took a little snooze in between the action, I called Archer. I told him to make an offer to Jellyfish. That’s what he negotiated on our behalf.” He grinned.

“Our behalf?”

“I promised I’d get you to your riverboat, and here
you are. I always keep my promises.” He winked at her.

He had her unbalanced, Ranger thought with a smirk. It felt good to unhinge her just a little. She was impressed, although she didn’t want to show it.

Cissy came running down the pier toward them. “Hannah! You made it!”

Hannah jumped out of the truck, and the two women embraced. Ranger beamed. Behind the women, his brother walked down the pier toward them, with another man beside him. Suddenly, Hannah separated herself from Cissy and went running toward the stranger. She launched herself into his arms, and he picked her up off the ground to swing her around.

Which he could do easily, Ranger observed with some dismay. The man was a brown giant. He topped Ranger by a couple of inches and outweighed him by a fit one hundred pounds. His arms, exposed by a short-sleeved T-shirt, had hams for biceps. His face was the youthful one of a twenty-something-year-old. And he treated Hannah as gently as if she were a doll. All the surety Ranger had felt began to shift inside his chest.

“Ranger!” Hannah exclaimed. “Come meet Jellyfish!”

O
NCE INSIDE
the boat, Hannah put away her luggage while Cissy looked on.

“Jellyfish was frantic when you didn’t show up,”
Cissy said. “He was ready to send out the National Guard. Ranger’s going to have to work to get on his good side.”

“He’s kind of protective of me.” Hannah sat down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. “All I want is a shower.”

“I’ll leave you to it.”

“Hang on a second, Cissy,” Hannah said. “Ranger got me lost on purpose. I’m sorry it held up the trip.”

Cissy shrugged. “I’ve made plenty in extra tips. I think I’m going to make more here than I did at Marvella’s. And it’s good, clean fun.” She glanced around the room. “I think I could like living like this.”

“Really? It suits the gypsy in me, but I would have thought you were looking for something more stable.”

“I don’t know.” Cissy shook her head with a soft smile. “It’s very romantic. I can’t wait to get moving down the river.”

“So, I guess Archer’s pretty bored?”

“Who cares? He doesn’t know what he wants any more than we do.”

“Great. We’re all just undecideds.”

“Nothing decided between you and Ranger, then?” Cissy looked at her. “I know how much you like him, Hannah.”

“I think I do. But…he’s not a man one hauls around like luggage, and I’ll never be the settled kind.”

“Jellyfish told me the two of you grew up in the commune together.”

“Yeah. We’ve known each other a long time.” Hannah looked at her toes.

“Do you know he’s talking about selling the riverboat?”

Hannah shook her head. “It won’t matter to me.”

“You won’t marry him?”

“No. We talked about it, because we are so similar. He understands me. We come from the same place. But…that all changed when I fell in love.”

Cissy nodded. “I can understand what you mean.”

“And yet, I know Ranger wouldn’t be the right man for me. In the long run, we wouldn’t be happy together.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Hannah picked up a brush and began working the tangles out of her hair. “I’m going to deal cards. That’s what I came to do.”

“And what about Ranger?”

Hannah put the brush down and leaned up against the wall, closing her eyes to enjoy the ever-so-slight rock of the boat. “Ranger can jump overboard for all I care.”

“S
O DO YOU THINK
she slept with him?” Archer asked.

Ranger cursed. “I’m not going to think about that. In my mind, that’s a branch of Hannah’s extended tree that’s going to get cut off.”

“You realize you’re basically in the position of being the twig,” Archer pointed out. “How are you going to weather that? Did you see the size of him?”

“I’ve hung on bounty bulls. I’ve lived through Mason. I’ve endured Mimi’s antics. Tell me one little girl’s heart can’t be stormed.”

“I don’t know, bro. Gentle Ben may give you some angina over Hannah.”

Ranger frowned. “Did he talk about her?”

“Hell, yeah! I mean, do birds crap on windshields? He wanted to come after you, man. The only way I stopped him was telling him that she was in safe hands. I mean, he’s like a wild man where Hannah’s concerned. Apparently, she’s the only thing that gets his blood up. Real protective is our Jellyfish.”

Ranger scratched his head. “I can’t say that she was exactly safe with me, man.”

Archer’s head jerked around like it was in a hurricane. “Shh! Dude! Don’t even say that. Walls have ears and all that, and you, my twin, might get to walk the plank if the man even thinks you were mean to his baby.”

“She is not his baby,” Ranger said, as a spasm in his jaw clenched his teeth.

“He thinks she is. Hey,” Archer said, staring at him closely, “you didn’t make her cry, did you? I mean, what if she tells him? He’s got thighs the size of your butt. Oh, man, I’m going to hate to see you get on the wrong side of him.”

“Thanks for the support,” Ranger said grimly.

“Listen, you’re talking about a young man who grew up in a commune and looks like a pirate. The rules are different. Hell, we’re not even on land!” Archer stared out the small window. “How far out to sea do we have to be before the laws of the land don’t apply?”

“What are you talking about?” Ranger went to get a clean shirt from his duffel. “If he’s got a beef, he can bring it to me. Otherwise, whatever happened between me and Hannah stays that way.”

“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Ranger hesitated. “I’m taking the fifth, for the moment.”

“I gotta warn you, bro, you knew that she had issues. Those issues aren’t going to go away just because you got her lost. If you didn’t get the job done then, maybe it doesn’t get done.”

“Maybe Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Ranger snapped. “I’m sneaking up on her. And she’s not the only one with issues.”

Archer digested that. “True. Listen, Ranger. This little trip has taught me something about myself.” He looked at his twin. “I’m not going any further with you.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I think I’m going to Alaska.”

Ranger didn’t want to hear it. He knew what was coming. “Don’t, man. He doesn’t want to be found. At this point, I don’t want him found. I don’t need to see him.”

“But I do, you know? I want to know what the deal is. Hell, life is short. Do you know I called home and Mason says the sheriff is real sick. He’s like, bad. Like going down in a hurry.”

“The sheriff?” Ranger’s heart sank. “What happened?”

“Apparently Mimi was keeping a little secret under her hat. He’s been sick for a while. Mason thinks that’s why she got married.”

“I don’t get it.”

Archer shrugged. “Her father’s ill. She wanted him to see her happy. Guess that’s why she got married on the fly. And now, if she can present the sheriff with a grandchild, don’t think wild bulls won’t keep Mimi from her destination.”

“Hot damn.”

“So, I’ve been thinking, bro. My e-mail relationship was about reaching out to someone with a kindred spirit. Anyone. But I don’t want a woman yet. I’m not like you.”

“I didn’t want a woman, either, about a week ago,” Ranger said grumpily. “In fact, I’m pretty damn sure I was a happy man.”

“I know. And look at you now. You’re a mess. And Jellyfish is gonna turn you into a pretzel if Hannah tells him you were less than a gentleman. See, I want to deal with my issues before some wily chiquita digs into my heart.”

“Yeah, well.” Ranger dug out a clean pair of jeans and threw them on the bed. “I have no desire to ac
company you to Alaska. But I should. Actually, that’s probably the best thing I could do.”

“There’s always the military, too. You don’t have to hang around here getting your heart broken.”

“Yeah. I see what you mean.” There was a lot of truth that he hadn’t wanted to see sinking into his thick skull. “You know, after I broke that crazy filly the sheriff unloaded on us, she was never the same.”

“You asked for that horse, bro. In fact, you begged for her. Said only you could tame her.”

Ranger nodded. “I remember only too well.” But once broken, the filly had turned sad and passive. All that wildness wasn’t just tamed; it was gone. It was as if she’d had to ignore the world to survive without her spirit. He’d always regretted it, and finally, he’d let the horse out to pasture for good, where she could get lost among the trees, a silver shadow he glimpsed every once in a while.

A knock on the door gave both of them pause. “Yeah?” Ranger called.

“Brother Ranger, it’s Jellyfish. Got a second?”

“Brother Ranger?” Ranger said to Archer. “That sounded deceptively friendly.”

Archer looked at his twin. “Try Big Brother Ranger. Whew! A second’s all he’s going to need with you. A second is all he’d need to take both of us out.”

Ranger sighed. “He seemed peaceful enough.”

“Right. I’ll cover you. But this is absolutely the last time I’m digging you out, man. It’s getting too dangerous!”